CHICAGO, Nov. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The editors at
Cars.com, the premier online resource for new and used vehicles,
today named the Honda CR-V and Toyota Camry the top redesigned cars
of the year. The Redesign Index takes into account a number
of factors, including sales, to determine which redesigns were the
most successful for automakers.
"Not all redesigns are equally successful, but the Camry and
CR-V scored big among top-selling models," said Kelsey Mays, Industry Analyst at Cars.com. "The
Camry drew huge appeal from car shoppers, and the CR-V has been
equally popular among shoppers and has also been a Cars.com
favorite this year, winning the Cars.com/USA Today Compact SUV Shootout."
Car manufacturers can spend $1
billion or more to develop new or redesigned cars, so sales
are a significant indicator of success. The new index created by
Cars.com takes a deeper dive into those figures to determine which
redesigned cars rose above the others. Cars.com experts crunched
numbers for 61 redesigns or introductions, and grouped cars into
three categories representing their annual sales numbers in order
to level the playing field. "After all, lesser selling models can
easily double their sales with a sharp redesign, but market
saturation makes it harder for a popular model to do the same,"
said Mays.
"Automakers count on redesigns to boost sales," said Mays.
"Though they are costly, the payoff tends to be significant,
however not all are as successful as the Camry and CR-V. We took a
look at an array of 2012 redesigns to determine which followed the
pattern of outselling their predecessors and which fell short."
For full results of Cars.com's 2012 Redesign Index, visit
www.blogs.cars.com. For current inventory listings of these cars or
any new car on the market, visit www.cars.com/for-sale/.
ABOUT CARS.COM
Cars.com is an award-winning online destination for car shoppers
that offers information from consumers and experts to help buyers
formulate opinions on what to buy, where to buy and how much to pay
for a car. Cars.com offers thousands of new and used vehicle
listings, consumer reviews, side-by-side comparison tools, photo
galleries, videos, unbiased editorial content and many other tools.
Cars.com put millions of car buyers in control of their shopping
process with the information they need to make confident buying
decisions. Launched in June 1998,
Cars.com is a division of Classified Ventures LLC, which is owned
by leading media companies, including A.H.
Belo (NYSE: AHC), Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), The
McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), Tribune Company and The Washington
Post Company (NYSE: WPO).
SOURCE Cars.com